International Champions Cup's Inter : A team with substance

A morning sitting down with a cup of
coffee and a cannoli cookie seems like a good time to think about
Inter, or Internazionale Milano, one of the four teams that are coming
to New York to compete in the International Champions Cup on August
4th. Instead of going with Milanos, these thick cake
cookies seemed more fitting for reflections on a team whose place in
the Italian Serie A league is neither thin nor brittle. And eating
while considering the history of the club is appropriate, since it
has its beginnings in the back room of a restaurant when a dispute
over the inclusion of non-Italians made Internazionale found its own
club apart from the organization that became AC Milan.

Founded just three years after Chelsea
began playing as a team in London, Inter shares both a city and an
arena with Milanese rivals A.C. Milan. San Siro, the stadium they
both share, was opened in 1926, and the first game it hosted was a
friendly between Milan and Inter. At first it was the home stadium of games
solely for AC Milan but then, in 1945, Inter moved in, and ten years
later a second tier was added to the stadium of the
grounds that they share to this day. Neither team is in any way second tier though.
In fact, San Siro is the common name for a stadium whose real name is
the Giuseppe Meazza stadium, in honor of the Inter player who was a
true scoring hero on the pitch, and led Italy to the win of two World
Cups, first in 1934 and four years later in 1938. After leaving Inter, he
played two seasons with AC Milan, but he is remembered wearing the
horizontally striped jersey of Inter Milan.

Within two years of its foundation,
Inter won its first title, the Italian Championship, the first half
point of the star that sits atop their team symbol, the star that
stands for the ten Italian Championships which they achieved in 1966.
During their history, they have never been relegated from the top
tier, the only team to have never suffered that fate in the history
of the league.

The team had glory years in the 1960's,
a period that found them credited by some with inventing the
defensive style of Catenaccio, a tactic that created a less thrilling
game, but one that was obviously more effective than any of the other
systems in play at the time, and with it they won nearly every trophy
Europe had to offer.

In 2010, under Jose Mourinho, the team
won the European Cup, the FIFA Club World Cup, the Italian Cup, a
very nice selection of hardware to possess. Since then, the team has
fallen from that top form and finished last season 9th in
the league. But that could change this year. Now managed by Walter
Mazzarri, Inter hopes to regain their form under the guidance of the
man who led Serie A Napoli to second place in the league last season.
It is the young players, like 21 year old striker Ishak Belfodil,
who will be interesting to watch, new to the team but not to the game
by any means. As the team uses this time to come together for
their next season, a season full of hopes that can very easily become
reality, we here in New York have the chance to witness it as it develops.
According to the Inter Milan press release, the squad that is
travelling to the United States is: